


Unburdened

by Cammerel



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, One-Shot, Short, yes this is a romance short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 01:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11795364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cammerel/pseuds/Cammerel
Summary: "The burden of saving the world a lot always weighed heavily on her, so for her sake, I hope she is somewhere on a beautiful beach located far away from any Hellmouth." - Sarah Michelle Gellar





	Unburdened

Buffy and Giles stand together, watching each group of girls set off to their motel rooms, blood on their clothes and dirt in their hair. Faith and the once Principal Wood take one ragtag team and Xander and Andrew take another. Willow and Kennedy sneak off to a room of their own and Dawn meanders behind.

“Take mine,” Buffy offers her and before Dawn can argue, she smiles, “Are you really gonna fight me for a nice and quiet room of your own?”

“Okay, no I’m not,” Dawn actually agrees with her and snags the key before she can change her mind.

Giles raises a brow at her curiously, “Not tired?”

“Are you kidding?” Buffy gives him a look that says ‘Bitch, I just closed a Hellmouth in a day’, and then shrugs, “I’m not tired. I’m exhausted.”

He chuckles and nods, “Just as well, you should get some sleep.”

“I plan to,” Buffy says softly, “I just don’t wanna be in a room alone.”

Giles gives her a surprised look, but he understands more than she thinks he ever will, “After a fight like that, I can’t imagine many people would. Good night, then.”

Buffy starts to follow after him and he stops in his footsteps.

“Oh,” he says when he realizes that she means to come with him to his room, instead of interrupting one of the other groups, “Oh, alright, very well.”

Buffy smiles up at him as he unlocks the door and lets them both in.

Her stiff gate catches his attention as he closes and locks it behind them, “You’re wounded?”

“Hm?” Buffy hums as she starts to carefully sit back on the bed.

But Giles is at her side in a breath, setting down his dufflebag and stopping her in her tracks, “Let me see it.”

“Giles, it can wait-”

She blushes when he gives her a stern look.

“I know you have Slayer healing, but I won’t have anything else happening after the day we’ve all had.”

She wants to argue him further, but she stops and finally moves to take off the tan jacket.

Giles helps her when she winces and he ushers her to put her hands down and let him, “I knew you’d taken a few hard hits, but you didn’t say you were stabbed.”

“Please, it’s the least of my worries.”

He carefully untucks her shirt, his hands unbuttoning it and he crouches slightly as he pushes off the soft white fabric, his hands touching her stomach as he observes where the blade cut her.

Fresh blood isn’t coming out, but it could still use a good cleaning.

Buffy hisses when he touches it, even though he’s gentle, “Ah.”

“Did it… go all the way through?”

“Mm… hmm,” she breathes out shakily.

“Buffy-”

“I can already feel it healing, I’m not going to a hospital and you know it.”

Giles nods, “At least let me care for it.”

He stops when he glances up at her and his gaze first goes to her pert breasts, eyes widening as he stands back up. It wasn’t like he’d been thinking about it when he undressed her, more concerned about the wound than seeing Buffy naked.

“Okay, okay,” Buffy agrees in annoyance, not noticing his awkwardness, “But make it fast, I wanna sleep.”

Giles agrees under his breath and when Buffy starts to sit on the bed, he offers a hand, slipping it carefully around her torso to help lower her down.

Buffy watches as he sifts through his bag and pulls out the bandages and starts setting everything out on the bed.

Before she can ask if he also packed milk, cookies, and half the store, he gets up and hurries into the bathroom.

He comes back a moment later with a warm wet cloth and washed hands, squatting down to start cleaning the blood from his skin.

“Have any thoughts about tomorrow?”

“Sleep in, watch cartoons,” Buffy muses aloud, “Maybe go to an all you can eat buffet tomorrow night and eat until I’m stuffed.”

Giles chuckles and he meets her watchful gaze, “I think we could all do a bit of that.”

“How are we on money?” Buffy asks then, because for the last year that’s been one gigantic concern of her’s, “We’ve got god knows how many slayers to feed, none of which have a home anymore.”

“Worry about that tomorrow,” Giles tells her as he finishes patching her up, “Maybe even the day after. We’ve got a bit of time before things become dire.”

* * *

Finally washing all of the grime and blood away is nice. The warm water soothing her still sore muscles, making her body feel like mush, and she allows herself to really relax and think about what she wants. By the time she’s done, she’s made up her mind.

Buffy wraps the towel around her body after towel-drying her hair, stepping out into the motel room and seeing Giles’s eyes lift from the book in his hands and stop on her.

She doesn’t miss the shade of his cheeks. He’s been like this the past few days, although sleeping in the same bed together probably doesn’t help, but she likes waking up curled up in his arms.

She joins him, sitting beside him on the bed, “What’s that?”

“A book,” he responds flippantly, laying it down and taking off his glasses to clean them.

“What were you /reading/ about?” Buffy presses, picking it up after him and thumbing through it.

“I was reading about the history of the Hellmouth in Cleveland.”

Buffy stops and closes the book, growing in silence as she nods. She presses her knees together, her lips, her ankles, and then she finally says what she’s been wanting to say for days, “I’m not going to Cleveland.”

Giles looks at her in surprise, his mouth opening as he puts back on his glasses.

Buffy turns to him, her eyes brimming with tears, but she doesn’t let them fall, “I think I’m done.”

Giles smiles sadly and reaches out to wrap an arm around her, pulling her close as she starts to cry, “I think you’re done too. You’ve die twice now. And I can’t count out how many times you’ve saved the world,” his voice gets softer as he speaks, “You took down your Hellmouth. And now there are hundreds, if not thousands of Slayers around the world… waiting for their turn. You’ve done enough.”

They’re both silent for some time, but it’s actually Buffy that speaks up then.

“Can you be done too?”

Giles lifts his brows, blinking a few times and looking down at her, “I suppose I would be,” he muses, “My parting would be with yours.”

Buffy takes in a deep breath and wipes her eyes, “So… what now?”

“I suppose we get to live.”

“I wanna live,” Buffy says wistfully, looking down at the torn and cut paint on her nails, “I’m ready to start living.”

Giles watches her, his arm still around her, “Any idea what you want to do? Where you want to go?”

“I don’t care,” Buffy admits, shrugging as she looks up at him, “I guess I never really stopped to think about it. But I want to do… so many things. I wanna get married, I wanna settle down, I wanna have a place I can call home…” she blushes and looks away, “I wanna be a mom.”

Giles feels his heart swell and ache, wanting to be a part of everything she’s saying, but he’s not sure where they’ll be after today. If her calling is over, and so is his, where does he go after it’s all over?

“I want it all,” Buffy tells him and leans against his side, “That’s all.”

“That’s all,” Giles repeats her, laughing, “All I’ve ever wanted for you, Buffy. To have a normal life like you always desired. Any idea what your first course of action will be, as a free woman?”

Buffy puckers out her lips as she considers it, “Well, Sunnydale is gone-”

“Very gone.”

“Gone-zo,” Buffy says, “Gotta find somewhere else to live. And I kinda wanna get as far away from the Hellmouth as I possibly can.”

“The one in Cleveland or-”

“Both, all of the above,” Buffy cuts him off and looks at Giles finally, “My first course of action?”

He lifts his brows, “Hm?”

She stares up at him, one hand still holding her towel in place as the other lifts to cup his cheek and she leans up. She’s careful, slow to make sure he wants it, but when he doesn’t pull away she lays it on him. And she lays it on hard.

When Buffy pulls back and Giles is winded, their arms tangled together, she smiles up at him, “Think you can do all that for me?”

“All what?” Giles asks, his glasses askew, his hair a mess.

“Settled, married, mom,” Buffy lists off, “Everything, anything, /all/ the things?”

Giles smiles and nods, “I think I can provide a more than adequate deliverance on all of those fronts.” 

“You’ll take me home?”

It only takes Giles a moment to realize what she’s asking.

Well, it /is/ far away from the Hellmouths.

“I will.”


End file.
